Geology

Avalar is part of a dramatic gas giant moon
system, one whose flamboyance is only eclipsed by the
system found within the Shivva system. The wealth of
Heart Queen's moons attracted Zhodani traders to the
region as early as -130. Most of the mineral wealth
remained untouched after the founding of the Avalar
Consulate, as the new governing elite wanted to
preserve the system for their estates, and did not
want mining waste and contamination fouling their
capitol world.

Three of Avalar's sister moons are habitable, and have
attracted sizeable populations of their own. One of
these moons, Cyan, is a water world that remains only
partially explored. All of these worlds have recently
reopened their mines to exploitation in order to
support the vast industry that has grown up thanks to
investment money coming from Regency immigrants and
their allies.

Geography

Avalar is divided between eleven
identifiable continents, six large and five small.
Most of the working and middle class population lives
on the continents of Hirvalli, Desu and Otland. Most
of the Venues, both governmental and private, live in
estates scattered about on Desu, Mokara and Genbyuana,
or live on the neighboring moons of Cyan and Felicity.

Avalar is more geologically stable than most T-Prime
worlds, and its terrain has been worn down more by
erosion and weathering by weather and climate. About
a third of all dry land is desert that has been deeply
incised into canyons and chasms by wind and rain.
Most of the planets cities and arcologies inhabit
river deltas and pediment valleys on the coastlines,
and most are seperated by vast stretches of untamed
wilderness. Most of Avalar's food comes from the moon
of Felicity, or is exported via starships from Daphne
and Eroda (Foreven 1833), and most farming on the
world proper is on the estates of the ruling Venues.

History

Avalar's strategic location attracted Zhodani
traders and explorers as early as -400. The world
became a base for operations in neighboring Beyond
Sector, and included a fair number of military ships
and contingents. The security this arrangement
afforded attracted a small stream of Imperial and ROM
colonists to the surrounding region, then known as
Chodlot, beginning in the 500s. Which Zhodani
permission the colonists settled Avalar proper in 543,
and early on colonised the world in very large
numbers.

Relations between the immigrants and their Zhodani
neighbors were very friendly. While exploration and
wound down as contact with the Third Imperium
increased, commercial contact expanded as the Avalar
Corridor continued to grow in population and wealth.
The Zhodani helped development of Avalar with
development loans and subsidisation of its starports
and trade routes. So vital did the Consulate become
to the world that in the aftermath of the First and
Second Frontier Wars the population made a clean break
from their former homeland in favor of a full embrace
of their allies' culture and politics.

The capitol has been the Avalar Consulate in minature.
The ruling bureaucratic/commericial class known as the
Venues emerged slowly in the 700s as the Consulate
expanded to include territory in Xenough and Titan
subsectors. The Venues growing economic clout
prevented the embrace of Zhodani culture from
extending to the wholehearted embrace of a psionic
meritocracy. Instead loose caste structure divided
between the ruling class and their workers emerged, a
kind of cynical, self serving psuedosocialist state.

This suspension between Imperial and Zhodani
despotisms required both the devolution of power to
new Venues emerging on other annexed or absorbed
worlds, and the creation of security forces, led by
the Shanza psionic police, to be on the alert for
dissension. Avalar itself became ground zero for
these efforts, and the world's population is
fanatically loyal to the ruling class, out of fear.

The expansion of the Venues and the growing need for
money to support their estates and social life in the
capitol prompted a reversal in the world's economic
development. Heavy industry was vacated from the
world in the 800s, and development was strictly
limited to a level less than that enjoyed by the other
industrial worlds in the Consulate. This actually
helped sway loyalty to the national government from
recalcitrant economic interests on peripheral worlds,
and made the capitol dependent upon industrial as well
as agricultural imports.

This industrial poverty has itself been overturned by
the industrial development created by increased trade
with the Regency and the Consulate's neighbors in
Beyond, and the chilly distance between Avalar and
Zhodane, since the Collapse. Avalar has seen its tech
level go from mediocrity to being near the Consulate's
cutting edge, and its population has more than doubled
in the last seventy years. Most of its industry is
export oriented towards the Regency or other
neighboring Spinward Hinters states, though the growth
in income is causing rapid expansion in the domestic
markets.

Few Regency immigrants were initially allowed on
Avalar out of security concerns, though the Psionic
Reforms removed most of those. Most Regency citizens
on Avalar are mostly second and third generation
migrants that have managed, either through economic
sucess or careful political manuevering, to vault
themselves into the Venues in their own right. Most
of the industries created by immigrant money are owned
by groups on Milne and Bebeto.

Culture

Despite the steady thaw between Avalar and
Mora, and growing liberalisation on other Avalar
Corridor worlds, Avalar remains insular, paranoid and
strictly controlled. Secret police patrols and
agents, either the Consulates or the planetary
governments, are a customary sight in public. Public
discourse among the lower classes is carefully vetted,
and self-censorship is regularly practiced. Political
discussion is not the only casualty of official
censorship and surveillance, but extends to cultural
and social issues as well, as the Venues do not like
any kind of speculative thought within the walls of
common society, and this attitude seems to pervade the
Consulate in general.

The Venues live seperate lives on most of Avalar's
worlds (the former Kamrathi League being an exception)
and this seperation is an unbridgeable chasm on Avalar
proper. The Venues, unless they deal directly with
the worlds population, live almost hermetically within
pampered luxury, with seperate services and restricted
estates, and exclusive access to what culture and
luxury are permitted to exist. While this luxury
sounds harsh, the comman man in the Avalar street
rarely begrudges their betters for it, as the Capitol
Venues are very solicitous of up-and-coming people of
talent, skill and beauty, and sponsor their entrance
into the upper class. This custom has come under
great attack since the arrival of Regency migrants on
neighboring Corridor worlds, who have lent their
disdain to those dissident elements who see it a
parasitical existence.

For the common man on Avalar, sports usually takes up
the slack in entertainment and luxury. Avalar citizens
often rechannel their frustrations and deprivations
into competitive exploits. While these are disdained
by the Venues, their popular hold has been
unbreakable. These sports tend to be the roughest that
can be played, including a mixture of American and
Austrailian rules football; Baggataway, the original
full contact version of Lacrosse; Handball; wrestling,
boxing and martial arts tournaments. Intellectual
discourses are limited to technical education and
school curricula, and entertainment material is often
dull and bled of any juicy material; tabloids are not
tolerated.